Hunter College High School is proud to announce its fifth annual Prison Bowl (named after its locale, the "Brick Prison"), to be held on Saturday, March 3, 2012.

To register, please email me at lilychen3.14159@gmail.com with "Prison Bowl registration" and your school's name in the subject line. The field will be capped at 36 teams. Schools can only register up to three teams at this time, with any additional teams going on a waiting list.Edit (2/24/12): Schools can register any number of teams.

Edit (1/8/12): This tournament is now platinum-certified by PACE, so the top 25% of teams will qualify for NSC.

Questions
The questions will be written by the Hunter team in standard mACF format (20 pyramidal tossups, 30-point 3-part bonuses, no computational math). We are aiming for regular difficulty, similar to last year's Prison Bowl set. The distribution this year will be as follows:

Tournament Format
Rounds will consist of an untimed 20/20, with neg-fives, no powers, and no rebounding bonuses. There will probably be about 12 rounds, depending on the final tournament format. Teams will play a bracketed round-robin prelim and re-bracketed round-robin playoffs, with the top two teams playing an advantaged final if necessary.

Fee Structure
$80 for first team
$70 for subsequent teams
-$10 for each working buzzer system
-$10 for each experienced moderator
Minimum fee: $40 per team
Other discounts, such as for travel, can be negotiated on a case-by-case basis (just email me).

Mirrors
We are also looking for mirror sites in various regions across the U.S. Please email me if you are interested in mirroring Prison Bowl.

I'll be in California on the Magical History Tour, but put Ridgewood down for 3 teams, and I guess 3 buzzers. Esther can't wait.

David Madden
Ridgewood (NJ) '99, Princeton '03
Founder and Director: International History Bee and Bowl, National History Bee and Bowl (High School Division), International History Olympiad, United States Geography Olympiad, US History Bee, US Academic Bee and Bowl, National Humanities Bee, National Science Bee, International Academic Bowl.
Adviser and former head coach for Team USA at the International Geography Olympiad

The field list in the top post is up to date. If you're a team on the "Expressing Interest" list, or if you've given me a range of team/buzzer/moderator numbers, please let me know as soon as possible what your final numbers are.

MWYang wrote:At around what time would the preliminaries conclude? There's an event at my school on that date for which some of my team's players have to be back for, so we would be leaving at around 2:30 PM.

Lily ... I am so sorry for the delay. I have one team, our 4 buzzers which St. Joe's will bring, and I will be happy to mod if needed. If you need an additional team, I can scare one up by lunchtime tomorrow. Again ... I am sorry. This should even out the field at 24, correct?

1. Registration will be from 8:00 to 8:45. Come to Room 402 when you arrive (someone will be stationed in the lobby to direct you there). We will provide breakfast. Please arrive on time so that we can start Round 1 at 9:00.

2. The tournament format will be as follows: The 24 teams will be broken up into 4 prelim brackets of 6 teams each. After a 5-round round robin within each prelim bracket, teams will be rebracketed by prelim record into 3 playoff brackets. The top two teams from each prelim bracket (8 teams total) will advance to the championship bracket, the next two to the second bracket, and the last two to the third bracket. Each team will play 6 more rounds against the teams in its playoff bracket that it has not already played, with the game against the team from its morning prelim bracket carrying over into their playoff record. The top two teams in the championship bracket (based on playoff record) will advance to an ACF-style final. If the top team has 2 wins more than the second team, it will win the tournament automatically. If the top team only has 1 more win than the second team, they will play an advantaged final. If the top two teams have the same record, there will be a one-game winner-takes-all final round between the two. Each team will be guaranteed 11 games.

3. Because Prison Bowl V has been platinum-certified by PACE, the top 25% of teams (6 teams) will qualify for PACE NSC at the platinum level.

4. Lunch will be after Round 5. We will not be providing lunch; there are many restaurants within walking distance of Hunter.

5. Please bring a check on Saturday for the registration fee, made out to "HCHS Quiz Bowl." I will give you an invoice/receipt. If you would like a copy of your team's invoice now, please email me.

Congratulations to GDS for yet another Championship; seems like this is becomiong a banner year for our friends from DC. And congratulations as well as to TJ and Ardsley for their excellent performances throughout the day. And we woud like to thank all at Hunter for another outstanding tournament and question set. My kids had fun, especially my youngsters on my C Team.

Thank you, everyone, for coming! Thanks especially to our moderators and scorekeepers and our advisor Mr Young, without whom this tournament could not have happened. I hope you enjoyed the tournament as much as we enjoyed hosting it.

Congratulations to GDS A for a great win, and to TJ A for a close second. The final round came down to the last tossup and was truly very exciting. The top 8 teams were:

Finally, I would like to extend a sincere apology to the teams in the Rikers Island and Sing Sing brackets who were affected by the schedule changes and did not get to play all 11 rounds. I realize I could have done more to regroup the consolation brackets once we realized that the teams who had left were gone. I hope everyone still enjoyed the tournament regardless.

To the teams who left early: I understand that sometimes plans change and people have to leave, but 3 out of 4 of you indicated that you would be returning after lunch when I specifically asked on the roster sheets. In the future, if you have to leave a tournament early, please let the TD know to avoid delaying the tournament.

If you have any comments on the question set, I would really appreciate it if you could email me at lilychen3.14159@gmail.com. Please don't discuss question specifics until the set is cleared in May.

Hi Lily and Hunter,
Thanks for hosting this, Ridgewood had a great time! Let me know if you'd like to chat at some point this June about outreach to NYC schools; I'm planning on spending a week or so visiting schools for NHBB in NYC at some point next year. Great to see Bronx Science on board too!

David Madden
Ridgewood (NJ) '99, Princeton '03
Founder and Director: International History Bee and Bowl, National History Bee and Bowl (High School Division), International History Olympiad, United States Geography Olympiad, US History Bee, US Academic Bee and Bowl, National Humanities Bee, National Science Bee, International Academic Bowl.
Adviser and former head coach for Team USA at the International Geography Olympiad

Yeah, now that I'm home I want to be sure to congratulate Hunter on a very well-run tournament; it's really not easy to write a fifteen-packet set and then finish twelve rounds by 5 PM, but Hunter managed to do it and make it seem effortless.

If you received a paper flyer from us about BHSAT, either at this tournament or at MIT, and you can go, don't hesitate -- email us registering for the tournament! If you can't, tell your friends!